It's Not Like A Loom, Despite What Marc Platt Says
by The Seventh L
Summary: Set in the Gonzoverse. Seras asks where vampire babies come from. Walter honestly doesn't know what to say. Somewhere I'm sure Alucard is grumbling about curious police girls.


Seras Victoria liked to think. Not aloud of course -- sometimes her mouth would move faster than her brain and make her trip up verbally, embarrassing herself severely -- but in her head, while waiting for dawn to break, lying in the coffin that still did not feel like a proper bed after several months of use. After the whole mess with Incognito and the deal with the microchip-vampires (which was never really solved, but nevermind that), one night found Seras lying in her coffin and thinking a very important question: _where do vampire babies come from_?

Her line of logic went like this: Vampires were made mainly from biting a virgin. But vampires have sex. And certainly vampiric evolution gave them a plan of action should there ever come a time where there were no humans around to convert. But she had never heard of vampires giving birth the traditional human way -- no stories of vampire maternity wards or the troubles of teething with fangs growing in had ever popped up in her searches for info, usually in the off-kilter gossip rags she had once browsed through lazily at the check-out counter but now collected like a regular odd bibliophile (there was a yellowing stack of_ Mad World Weekly_ hiding in a corner of her closet under all her old summer clothes). So, the question remained: where _did_ itty bitty vampires come from?

Alucard would know -- but the prospect of bringing it up in front of him was less than tempting. He still put a fright into Seras, especially after seeing his released form in the tower. Besides, he was a guy. Integra might know -- but, no, that was her _boss_, for Christ's sake. Seras didn't want to discuss vampire reproduction with the woman who could burn her contract in a second with the lit tip of her cigar.

Seras ended up stumbling out of bed, still wide-awake and determined to find the answer, and stumbled into the room of one Walter Dornez. He was, not surprisingly, awake and polishing his monocle with a white cloth, the chain hanging unused over his arm. Walter looked up and greeted her with a soft, genial smile that made Seras feel slightly guilty for the question she was about to spring on him. She hoped that Walter, with his many years of experience behind him, would be able to shed some light on her problem.

So, when Walter asked what brought her to his bedroom at such an unusual hour, she responded with, "I need to know where vampire babies come from!", which elicited a hybrid reaction of a cough and a choke, followed by Walter pulling out a white hankerchief which he used to dab at his chin, his face a little paler than usual.

"Well, Miss Seras, what brought this on so suddenly? You have never been -- curious -- about the ways of vampire reproduction before."

Seras frowned a little. "I was jus' thinking, after all the stuff with the vamps made from microchips, I don't know where their, um, _offspring_ come from."

"And why did you not bring your question to a vampire, like Alucard?"

The pained look Seras gave Walter at his suggestion was more than enough of an explanation. She looked at him and momentarily reconsidered coming to his room in the first place, but he was the oldest person (read: human) in the institute, possibly the smartest and certainly the most level-headed about things when push came to hurried shove. He had been able to drop Integra safely onto the ground while piloting a broken helicopter during the initial siege of Incognito's base; figuring out and explaining the mysteries of vampyric copulation to a non-scientific mind like Seras' was certainly not beyond his capabilities.

But then again, maybe it was.

"Well," he began, rubbing his monocle absentmindedly as he spoke, "I guess it's the same as when humans make children---"

"But why?" Seras pressed her lips together tightly, eying Walter with visible confusion. "Don't vampires work different than humans on the inside?"

Walter resisted the urge to rub his temples, which were beginning to ache despite the several cups of tea he'd drank over the last hour or so. "It's complicated, I'm sure, Miss Seras, and would take quite a bit of time to explain."

Seras saw a flash of pain cross his face. Guilt formed a knot in her stomach at the sight. _Stupid, silly me_, she thought scoldingly, _Putting Walter through all this stress just for some childish question_. Seeing Walter in pain, even from a headache, brought similar feelings inside of Seras, even if she could not understand them.

She took a step back. "I-I should probably go to bed, then. Read up on it later, yeah?"

With one fluid movement, Walter was standing, his monocle cleaned and over one of his eyes. "I shall see you this afternoon, Miss Seras?"

Seras smiled; it did not reach her eyes. "Yeah. G'night, Walter."

"And to you, Miss Seras."

She stepped out of the room and was one foot in the hallway when she heard him clear his throat softly and speak: "Miss Seras?"

One foot hovered in the air, still in mid-step. "Um, yes?"

Later, Seras swore she could have literally _heard_ the smile Walter wore, the light in his eyes when he replied, "Even vampires, before they turned, were once humans, and a human heart cannot change. That is, I believe, the most important part of all. Do you not agree, Miss Seras?"

Seras smiled, and it was a smile she could believe in. "Yeah, I do. Thanks, Walter."

"My pleasure, Seras."

Outside, snow began to fall in light waves as dawn broke on the horizon, hidden behind gray clouds and morning mist from the English Channel. Seras spent a moment sitting beside her bedroom window to watch the flakes form a round, slender bump on the windowsill, her hands wrapped around her tea mug which, although empty, still felt as comfortingly warm as the very Christmas day she received it a year ago from the very man who even then, as the want of sleep attempted to take hold of her consciousness, held the attention of her mind, her heart.


End file.
